Ed Wood is kind of the “forgotten” Burton film. Everyone knows the Burton classics like Edward Scissorhands or Batman or Beetlejuice, but nobody really remembers Ed Wood – even though they really should do so.
The film was released in 1994 and is a biopic by Burton about the titular Ed Wood, a director working from the fifties to the seventies who was famous for creating a crap-load of crap flicks. It is Ed Wood who “gifted” the world with such gems as Bride of the Monster and the Best Worst Movie of All Time, Plan 9 From Outer Space (sorry, Tommy Wiseau, but The Room is only a close second to that stinker).
It is unfortunate that Ed Wood was not financially successful and therefore not very well known beyond either mega Burton fans or cinephiles, as the film is stylish, well-made and full of great performances. You don’t have to just take my word for it either, as even though the film was not a big hit at the box office it was a critical success, even winning two Academy Awards (Best Supporting Actor and Best Makeup).
The film focuses primarily on Wood’s early years when he was trying to get his initial break in Hollywood, which was sadly something that never eventuated for him. It charts the making of three of his earliest films: Glen or Glenda (1953), which was Wood’s feature-film directorial debut, Bride of the Monster (1955), wherein the film depicts the struggles that Wood often had to navigate to get his work financed, and finally his magnum crapus (a magnum opus of crap), Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959). The film also explores Wood’s personal relationships – that of his first girlfriend, Dolores Fuller, and then the woman who would become his wife, Kathy O’Hara – but also arguably the relationship that was most important to him: his close friendship with iconic early monster-movie actor Bela Lugosi.
Johnny Depp plays Wood, and he does an excellent job. You don’t need me to tell you that Depp’s career has been very hit-and-miss over the years (mainly miss these days), but for every Mortdecai there’s an Ed Wood, and watching this film makes it easy to remember why he was once such an in-demand and respected actor (legal troubles aside, obviously). The over-the-top and frankly quite annoying zany schtick that characterises a lot of Depp’s more recent work (even just looking at the promotional imagery for Mortdecai has me seething with rage) is wonderfully absent here. Even though Depp plays Wood with this absolute frenetic energy it works because it conveys Wood’s seemingly endless optimism, his absolute sincerity. Within minutes you can’t help but like Wood and want all of his dreams to come true.
Now, in terms of whether this characterisation is historically accurate or not, Burton has acknowledged that his portrayal of Wood is “overly positive” and that he purposely chose to omit some of the darker aspects of Wood’s life because he didn’t want to keep kicking a man who had been kicked down a thousand times by others – but I think that’s beside the point. I don’t think the film needs to be as accurate as possible, and in fact works better because it isn’t. Ed Wood is a film that’s as much about the people it’s portraying as the message it includes. Obviously Wood’s real life was much less the fairy-tale that this film depicts it as, but Burton and Depp turn what was in real life quite a sad story into one that brings a message of hope and perseverance to the audience. For a while Wood really was living the dream that he had always wanted – he was in Hollywood, he was making movies, people were watching his movies. He never gave up despite countless setbacks, and if we all had that drive within us imagine how many of our own goals we could achieve!
The other casting highlight is Martin Landau, who gives an Academy Award-winning performance as Bela Lugosi, most famous for his starring role as Dracula on both stage and screen. Landau’s Lugosi is cynical (Wood meets him when Lugosi is convinced that his life will be over soon and is therefore trying out various coffins), cantankerous (hearing anything about long-time rival Boris Karloff throws him into a rage) but also incredibly convivial (he and Wood quickly develop a firm and unbreakable friendship). Lugosi’s tale is easily as tragic as Wood’s, as he too wanted mainstream success (or in this case to recapture the success he once had), but sadly he failed to do so before he died. By the time Wood met Lugosi the man was ageing and in poor health because of a drug addiction. All of this is depicted in the film so convincingly by Landau. Lugosi did not get the comeback he was looking for in his lifetime, but thankfully his influence lives on to this day – he is the quintessential Dracula, after all. Whilst Landau is an absolute scene-stealer as he portrays the heart-breaking story of the faded star, credit also needs to be given to the costuming and special-effects make-up teams, who did an outstanding job of transforming Landau into a very accurate Lugosi – it’s no wonder Rick Baker won an Academy Award for his prosthetic work on this film.
The film contains an absolutely packed cast of other notable actors playing notable (or not so notable) celebrities that were a part of Wood’s world. Nearly all of them do a brilliant job, but if I was to talk about how great they all were, we would be here forever. There’s Bill Murray as Bunny Breckenridge, a drag queen and friend of Wood’s. Lisa Marie is Maila Nurmi/Vampira, who Wood unsuccessfully attempts to begin a romantic relationship with, unsuccessfully attempts to get to show his film on her show, and then finally asks her to star in Plan 9 From Outer Space, this time successfully. Jefferey Jones is The Amazing Criswell, a fake television psychic and also the infamous narrator of Plan 9 From Outer Space. Wrestler George “The Animal” Steele portrays Tor Johnson, a role so fitting for Steele that he was often actually mistaken for Johnson during his career. Sarah Jessica Parker is Dolores Fuller, Wood’s girlfriend before meeting his wife, and Patricia Arquette is Wood’s eventual wife Kathy. Finally, Juliet Landau (daughter of Martin) portrays Loretta King, a struggling actress who Wood puts in one of his films because he mistakenly thinks she is rich and can therefore finance the production of it. Whew! See what I mean? There’s a lot of talent in this film! All of these actors do an amazing job with their roles, totally embodying their characters and bringing them to life, except for Patricia Arquette, who is a bit of a wet blanket. She was the only actor that I felt never really got into her character very deeply or acted particularly well, so it really broke the immersion of every scene she was in – every time she was on screen it just felt like Ed Wood somehow hanging out with Patricia Arquette, not Ed Wood and Kathy O’Hara.
Now, the performances in the film are certainly one facet of its brilliance, but the other is in how the film is constructed. First of all it’s an incredibly stylish film, with a definite air of that Burton-esque “cartoonishness”. The film is shot in black and white (a decision that actually caused Columbia Pictures to eventually pass on the film) so it feels just like the Z-movies it’s focusing on. The sets of each of Wood’s films are also carefully and faithfully recreated, as are the costumes. One creative decision that really stands out is the opening sequence, which features a wonderfully campy monologue from Jefferey Jones’ Criswell, featuring him rising from a coffin inside a spooky haunted house complete with stock lightning sounds and the creaking mechanics of the coffin lid opening. Then there’s the credits, the names intercut with stock Z-movie horror features like graveyards and flying saucers, all with this delightfully 50s score. It’s such a great opening – Burton really is the go-to director for this kind of “spooky-fun” tone, and it’s clear that he is in his element. This opening shows that he is not just a fan of these kinds of films, he really understands what makes them what they are.
The light-hearted and fun tone continues throughout the rest of the film. The performances are always just the right level of over-the-top to both be humorous and reminiscent of the performances in Wood’s own films. There is snappy dialogue galore (one of my favourite jokes is when Sarah Jessica Parker reads a review about one of her performances and asks “do I really have a face like a horse?”) More serious subject matter, like Wood’s transvestism and his issues with feeling accepted, are dealt with positively, and the film extols the virtues of non-conformity and being comfortable with your own identity without ever feeling preachy or melodramatic.
The pace of the film is also something to mention, as the film barrels past key events at break-neck speed. This isn’t always a bad thing, as it means the audience gets a lot of details about Wood’s life and career, but unfortunately there is not as much time devoted to the making of Plan 9 From Outer Space, which is the film everyone best knows Wood for. It almost kind of feels a bit like a footnote at the end of the film, which spends more time focusing on the lesser known Bride of the Monster. That’s a shame, as there would be fans of Plan 9 who watched this film specifically for an insight into how the disaster came to be, much like the fans of The Room watching The Disaster Artist to find out how Wiseau possibly engineered such a masterpiece. They will likely be disappointed.
And now we come to the most important part of this review: should you watch the film? The simple answer is yes. There’s a lot to love about the film even if you have never heard of Ed Wood or any of his films, as fundamentally it’s a story about perseverance. It’s a shame that in popular culture Wood ends up as the butt of so many jokes, as there are so many people who want to do what he did (i.e. direct films) but never even bothered. Sure, his films aren’t great, in fact, they’re pretty damn terrible. But at least Wood tried to live his dream. That’s more than a lot of people can say. As Orson Welles (yep, that Orson Welles, and no, that meeting never actually happened) says to Wood near the end of the film: “visions are worth fighting for. Why spend your life making somebody else’s dreams?”
BEST BITS
- Depp and Landau’s performances.
- The obvious love Burton has for both the story and the Z-movie genre really shines through.
- The Orson Welles cameo by Vincent D’Onofrio/ Maurice LaMarche. It’s scarily accurate.
WORST BITS
- Patricia Arquette’s performance.
- Not enough time spent on the making of Plan 9 From Outer Space.
- The portrayal of Dolores Fuller is entertaining but not really very accurate, and does a disservice to her.
FINAL RATING: 8/10
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